Vanessa Coleman blames 'bad guys,' drugs in plea for sentencing leniencyBy Jamie Satterfield
Posted January 29, 2013 at 9 p.m.
She's beat the blues, kicked the drugs, cooled that temper and recognized the siren's call of bad boys.
So says Vanessa Coleman in detailing her rehabilitative efforts behind bars since she was charged in the January 2007 torture slayings of Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23.
State Probation Officer Susan Wilder this week filed what's known as a pre-sentence investigation report on Coleman in the run-up to a
sentencing hearing Friday for Coleman after a jury in November deemed her guilty of facilitating the kidnapping, rapes and death of Christian.
The probation report is designed to help Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood decide just how much time Coleman should garner.
Her defenders are urging leniency to the tune of 20 years. Prosecutors are pushing for maximum, stacked sentencing for a total of nearly 50 years.
Coleman was sentenced after the first trial to 53 years but no longer faces that hefty a punishment because the second jury, which hailed from Jackson, Tenn., cut her a break on some of the lesser charges.
In the report, Coleman confessed she was a six-joint-a-day marijuana smoker and used as much as a half-ounce of cocaine a day in the days leading up to the slayings.
"She said she was influenced by 'bad guys,' " Wilder wrote.
...more at linkhttp://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/2 ... s-in-plea/Coleman's sentencing hearing is at 12 noon ET, Friday Feb 1.